If you're using mostly bones (especially bones from chicken you already cooked), you can also infuse some potent meaty flavor into your broth very quickly by browning some ground chicken and leaving it in the bottom of the pot before adding your bones, veggies and water.

<i>Cook's Illustrated</i> tested that this year. Room temperature meat did not roast significantly faster (a difference of, on average, 10% of total oven time), and the exterior reached the "danger zone" well before it went into the oven.

Anyone have any recommendations for good places to go for a Maryland-style crab boil in NYC? Any of the City Island restaurants? Any place in Manhattan? Or do we have to slog all the way to Sheepshead Bay, or the Jersey Shore?

It's not a quality issue. Natural cocoa powder is reddish and quite acidic, which affects both the flavor and texture of the final product. It has become very hard to find in the US since the advent of alkalinized, or "Dutched", cocoa, which is much darker brown, tastes more "chocolatey" and is neutral in pH (which affects rise and texture). However, Dutched cocoa doesn't give the red color, so traditionalists started adding red food color.